


Disconnect

by intoapuddle



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Introspection, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:42:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25345633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoapuddle/pseuds/intoapuddle
Summary: Therapy had yet to really work out in any way other than to find new ways for Dan to repress his inner world.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 17
Kudos: 133





	Disconnect

There was no logic involved when it came to this.

Dan was pacing the streets of London with no goal in sight. His chest was tight and his palms were sweaty inside his coat pockets. The air was crisp but not breathable. There was nothing but streetlights and loud city noises to give Dan a clue as to where he was going. Then again, people don’t typically need directions when they’re going nowhere.

He found his way home eventually, after stalling every step of the way. Dan expected therapy to be hard, but it always knocked the wind out of him as though he hadn’t seen it coming. Going back home after seemed impossible. His mind was still wrapped inside the past. 

He hung up his jacket and rolled his eyes at the flickering light in the hallway outside the front door before closing it. His head hurt. Every little sensation or external input crawled like insects across his skin. In the most physical sense possible, Dan felt uncomfortable. Only, he knew that the reason for it was nothing if not psychological. Knowing it was better than not knowing it, but Dan despised how little sense it made. It created a disconnect that made him want to run away.

Dan couldn’t run from himself, though. He’d tried enough times to know that much.

A hot shower later, Dan wasn’t feeling much better. Therapy was a strange puzzle to him, still. The idea that it would make him better felt far off. His therapist claimed that it would get worse before it got better, but Dan wasn’t exactly feeling worse. Rather, he was aware of himself in a way that he never had been before. His thought patterns were easier to manage with the help of a professional, but overthinking wasn’t the problem right now. The too-bright world and the phantom sensation of a chokehold was. It turned out that redirecting his self defeating thoughts instead left him with no clue as to what was bothering him. Therapy had yet to really work out in any way other than to find new ways for Dan to repress his inner world.

Originally Dan had planned to proceed his evening by getting into his pyjamas and having something to eat. Closing the door of the bedroom was the first sense of peace he’d felt all day, though. That was enough for Dan to change his mind. He tossed the towel over a chair and got under the duvet. At first he shivered, but as his muscles began to relax one by one, warmth spread throughout his body. Finally, something other than tension and anxiety. All that remained was confusion and exhaustion. Nonsense tears rolled down his cheeks. His heart ached inside his chest. Dan had no idea why, and he most likely didn’t want to know either.

A knock at the door interrupted his almost trance-like state of dissociation and shoved him back into reality.

“What?” Dan said. He adjusted his head against the pillow only to realise that there was a large patch of wetness by his nose, revealing just how long he’d been crying for.

The door opened and closed. Phil sat down beside Dan on the bed and gently nudged his bare shoulder.

“Do you want to be alone?” Phil asked. Dan could tell that the patient tone of his voice was unnatural, put-on, but he appreciated it anyway.

In this state, Dan didn’t want anything. He didn’t _not_ want anything either. What he needed was to float around in the nothingness inside his skull for long enough to forget his surroundings, to forget his life. At another point in his life, being forced out of that would have made him snap and lead to a useless argument that’d only give Dan more to run away from. At this point in his life, Dan could look past some of his own needs. At least for long enough that he noticed that the question Phil posed was more so communicating Phil’s needs. Phil didn’t want to be alone. He needed to be close to Dan right now, for whatever reason. Dan didn’t want to be alone enough to rob Phil of that comfort.

“No,” Dan mumbled. “Come here.”

He turned around. Phil undressed in the darkness before him and slipped beneath the covers. They were close, but not touching. Whenever there was tension, when Phil was stressing out about something, Phil couldn’t make the first move into touch. So Dan reached out. He fit his palm around Phil’s sharp hipbone and scooted closer. It made Phil smile widely enough that for a brief moment, reality stopped hurting. Dan smiled back, kissed his partner’s lips, and inhaled the soothing scent of his aftershave as they wrapped their arms around each other.

Dan didn’t return to the trance-like state he’d longed for, but he fell asleep inside a warm embrace of loving arms.

-

The next day, Dan went about the morning like he normally would. He had coffee and breakfast with Phil while they watched TV and made stupid jokes. The disconnect was present here too, even though it was everything but invited into the comfort and routine they’d built together over the years. The feeling had become something of a third flatmate, so loud that even Phil noticed it at this point. He had developed his own personal relationship with it even if he didn’t know it as intimately as Dan did.

At times, Dan didn’t like that. He’d much prefer Phil to be oblivious to the hopelessness and anxiety lurking behind every corner while he was pretending to be enjoying the new episode of _Free!_ just as much as Phil was. At the same time, Dan remembered what it had truly been like, being alone in feeling the presence of his disconnect. He knew that he didn’t want to go back to that time. Still, his impulse to lock everything inside of himself made itself known. Thankfully now Dan had an easier time moving past it.

This was the best possible situation to feel awful in, all things considered. Dan preferred being able to laugh next to his best friend to sitting alone obsessing over the horrible feeling making a home inside of himself. Besides, he wasn’t alone in feeling haunted. Phil was almost as good at pretending as Dan was, but not good enough. His stress was sitting in one of the corners of the lounge too, keeping Dan’s feelings of disconnection company. Dan knew, and Phil knew, but they managed to make it through the morning unscathed.

They didn’t always talk about it. These parts of them had interrupted enough moments in their relationship before that they’d learned how to acknowledge their presence without luring them closer. Dan liked that; he liked that Phil didn’t talk about it all the time. It was one of the most important parts of their compatibility, in Dan’s opinion.

There was one staggering difference between their ghouls, though. In this case, it was that Phil could tell what his stress was about. Contrary to Dan, he knew how to soothe it by himself. It wasn’t ever gone for long, and the cycle Phil fell into time and time again was absolutely unhealthy, but he could sometimes find a momentary sense of reprieve at the end of a workday. 

Dan felt the change as the evening hours approached. Phil’s held-back, almost snappy demeanor died down. He was becoming grounded, more secure, than he had been all day. 

They’d spent a few hours working on IRL Merch and filmed a sketch for one of Phil’s videos. The absence of work related stress was palpable when they got in bed together. If Dan hadn’t noticed it before, it was obvious in the intent with which Phil touched him now. Dan was lying on his back, looking at his phone, as Phil curled around his side. His leg hooked over Dan’s hips, and his hands wandered. Faint fingertips brushed over Dan’s arm. Hot breath was exhaled against his neck, as Phil tilted his chin up while using Dan’s chest like a pillow.

“Finding any good memes?” he asked.

It wasn’t a real question. It was just a way to break the silence, to coax Dan out of whatever he was numbing his brain with. A twinge of anger flared inside of him, but then Phil placed a kiss below one of Dan’s collarbones. It felt warm enough, needy enough, for Dan to shift focus.

“Is there really such a thing as ‘good memes’ if you think about it?” Dan asked. 

Phil let out an absentminded chuckle. Dan put his phone away on the bedside table. He settled a hand around the back of Phil’s head, the pads of his fingertips ending up behind his ear, brushed them over the freshly shaved side.

Phil shivered against the touch. As Dan stroked Phil’s arm, he felt the hairs there begin to raise. Phil pushed his head back against Dan’s hand and for a moment all that existed was the goal of coaxing those long, quiet, relaxed breaths out of his partner.

“Feel good?” Dan asked.

“Yeah,” Phil said, his eyes meeting Dan’s.

Despite the disconnect still keeping them company, it took much more than that for Dan to go unaffected by the way Phil was looking at him now. There were more itches to scratch, and Dan found himself wanting to satisfy every single one.

Phil’s lips settled against Dan’s. Normally it took Dan a while to get into this when he’d been feeling the way he had for the past couple days. Tonight, surprisingly, there was nothing holding him back from indulgence.

Dan’s skin almost burned with the rush of blood and heat flowing around his body as Phil wrapped his hand around Dan’s still mostly soft cock. Phil didn’t need to say anything for Dan to know to push him into the mattress and kiss him hard. The single mindedness of sex didn’t feel like relief to Dan, but it was better than to remain perfectly aware of how unaware he was.

“I want you,” Phil said against Dan’s mouth as he grabbed two handfuls of his ass.

Dan teased a dry finger between Phil’s cheeks. The genuine groan in response almost made him giggle. He could feel Phil’s rim flutter, expecting the intrusion. Dan had to bite back a groan of his own as he rubbed harder just to feel Phil’s muscles contract again.

“That bad?” Dan asked. He was breathing more heavily now.

“Do you want to?” Phil asked, pulling back a bit.

“Want to what?” Dan teased.

Phil relaxed again, pushing down against Dan’s finger. “Do you want to fuck me?”

Dan pushed a thumb just below Phil’s balls, causing him to make a flustered, choked noise.

“Fuck yes,” Dan exhaled.

He made his way down between Phil’s legs. Phil spread them almost obscenely wide. Dan pushed his hands against the backs of his thighs to keep him open. Maintaining eye contact, Dan leaned forward and flattened his soft, wet tongue over the hole.

“Oh, my God,” Phil moaned, arching his back and closing his eyes.

Dan flicked his tongue over him with a grin.

He made out with Phil’s hole for what felt like forever, and the previous rush stopped. Dragging his tongue flat over the sensitive skin between Phil’s asscheeks, Dan felt calmer. He poked inside and settled his lips over the area to suck. The sound of moaning and rustling sheets as Phil gripped them for purchase was like music to Dan’s ears.

Dan would have made Phil come like this if it weren’t for Phil finally combing his fingers through his hair, beckoning him.

“Babe.”

“Hm?” Dan said, followed by a slurping noise once he finally looked up.

“I don’t want to come yet.” Phil tugged at Dan’s hair. Dan got up, braced himself on his hands on either side of Phil and leaned down. Phil accepted the quick kiss with a pleased hum.

“I’m so fucking horny right now,” Dan said, laughing, feeling just how true it was once the words were said.

“Me too,” Phil sighed. He moved his hands over Dan’s sides. He was beautiful like this, when his skin was flushed pink with arousal and his eyes were dark. When his voice was low and aroused and impatient. “Wanna come around your cock.”

He reached down, finding Dan’s dick, wrapping his hand around the hard shaft.

“Fuck,” Phil groaned. “You’re so hard.”

Dan nodded, fucking into Phil’s grip, and leaned back in.

They kissed, deep and filthy as Phil wanked Dan’s cock with purpose. He covered it in lube and, impossibly, brought Dan to an even more desperate state of arousal, making it easy for Dan to finally push his aching cock inside. Phil’s muscles gave beautifully, opening him up until Dan was all the way inside. He felt so perfect. So wet. Every thrust was smooth and noisy as Phil met every one of Dan’s thrusts. 

It was the best like this, when Dan was on top of Phil and Phil’s legs were spread wide, feet crossed at the small of Dan’s back; when they were face to face, groaning between kisses as they fucked and fucked and fucked; only ever letting up to make it last longer. Wet slapping noises paired with passionate moans as Phil dug his heels into the dimples of Dan’s back and Dan squeezed Phil’s sides hard enough to leave bruises.

“Want you-” Phil said, panting, “-want you to come in me.”

Dan slowed down in order to halt the sudden tingling all over his own ass and thighs as he imagined what Phil was describing. 

“No, keep going,” Phil said, pushing at Dan’s back. “Keep fucking me like that.”

“I’m gonna-”

“Yeah,” Phil nodded, still breathing fast. “Want you to. Want your load.”

 _”Fuck,”_ Dan almost sobbed, thighs shaking as he fucked Phil faster, harder.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Phil praised him. “That’s it, Dan- _ah_ -so good.”

Dan went harder. Phil’s words melted into one another, turning into long notes of pleasure as the breaths they shared got faster and more frantic. Phil’s tensed up, milking Dan’s desperate cock, practically wringing the orgasm out of him to finally spill deep and hard inside of Phil.

Dan fucked Phil hard enough through their simultaneous orgasms to make his hip joints crack. He slumped heavily, exhausted and laughing, on top of him.

“That was so good,” Phil said, dazed but smiling as he stroked Dan’s back in a soothing pattern. “So good.”

Dan slipped out but they clung to one another. Phil’s arms locked around him as Dan nuzzled into his lovely sweaty neck, feeling so held and loved it made his heart ache. Sometimes he wished he could literally melt into Phil, have their skin blend together so that he could always feel like this. Perfectly connected to each other and the world they shared, finally freed from the prison of personhood and identity and trauma. Nonsensical tears rolled down Dan’s cheeks as reality once again made itself known in a corner of the room, but Phil comforted him as though Dan’s disconnect was welcome even in the aftermath of sex. Dan cried harder, with more feeling, as thoughts began to rain down from his subconsciousness and into his conscious mind. The armour he put up around it was nothing right now. It melted away as though the drops were made out of lava, making him vulnerable to every dangerous, terrifying realisation he didn’t want to make.

“Breathe with me,” Phil whispered. “You’re okay. I’m here. I love you.”

Dan took a hard breath, nodding against Phil’s neck. Phil kept holding on. Finally, the unknown made itself known and Dan could _think_. His feelings were no longer undefined, they were stark and clear as day in his mind.

Dan didn’t feel strong enough for therapy. He didn’t feel strong enough for change. Part of him wanted to cope like he used to, no matter how destructive those patterns were. He had worked so hard to avoid these emotions only to be forced to confront them. His old ways of coping were still rock solid. They stopped his progress, every time, leaving Dan to try and find a new therapist that could make the process feel easier or at least less like he was dying.

He was afraid that was all there was. That there was no real progress at the end of this long, scary tunnel he’d been crawling through since his privacy was first invaded. That all there was were futile attempts that only made him sink deeper into the unknown, into repression, into loneliness.

Tonight, Dan didn’t fuse together with Phil. He didn’t get to forget his own mind or his own fears or the fact that he was a person. 

But... that was okay. 

After they both cleaned up and got ready to sleep, Phil made himself comfortable against Dan’s chest. Relaxing, breathing. Dan fit his chin on top of Phil’s head.

“Promise me something,” Dan spoke into the darkness.

“What?” Phil asked.

Dan hesitated.

“It’s stupid,” he said.

Phil was quiet. Moving, he made them shift their position enough to look into each other’s eyes. Dan wasn’t sure whether it was easier or harder to speak while looking at Phil right now.

“Promise me you won’t leave.” Dan whispered it like a secret.

He expected to be laughed at. He expected sarcasm, and retorts, and easy jabs. Instead, Phil’s face crumbled with sincere empathy that Dan fought not to interpret as something else-something like a desire to live his own life and to stop worrying about all of Dan’s problems.

“I won’t leave you,” Phil said. “I promise. I promise, Dan.”

Dan felt bad for even asking, hearing the conviction in Phil’s voice. He was supposed to feel comforted, but what he really felt was stupid.

“You have no idea how easy it is to make that promise,” Phil said. He touched Dan’s cheek, brushed the hair out of his eyes. “You’re my favourite person.”

“You’re mine,” Dan said, eyes closing. “I’m sorry.”

_Sorry for asking stupid questions, sorry for crying after sex, sorry for all the ghosts appearing in even our sweetest moments._

“I wish you felt the way I mean it,” Phil whispered.

“I do,” Dan said, the scratchy feeling in his throat easing. “I think. My therapist always comments on how I smile whenever I talk about you.”

Phil pulled back to look at Dan. “Really?”

They didn’t talk about therapy. Therapy was a pattern of Dan leaving the house once every two weeks and coming back quiet, vulnerable, and shut off. Phil reached out in the ways he knew how to; by making sure they went about their days like they normally would. Seeing the surprise in his eyes now, Dan wasn’t sure either of them were going about it the right way.

“Yeah,” Dan nodded.

They paused. Phil turned to lie on his back. With a rough sigh, Dan curled into Phil’s side. He was so soft, brushing his lips against the top of Dan’s head. Dan reached for the duvet and Phil helped him fit it around the two of them, in their corner of the world, for once feeling unreachable.

“What else do you talk about in therapy, Dan?” Phil asked into the darkness.

The tears burned behind Dan’s eyelids as he shut his eyes. When Phil was stressed out, he needed touch to feel grounded in himself. He wouldn’t ask for it, he wouldn’t reach out for it, but Dan knew that was what worked. Dan had no clue what worked for himself when he couldn’t find his footing. His brain was a confusing mess. Dan could give literally any answer to Phil’s question, and in a way, any of them would be correct.

Still, Dan pushed past the emotions that were threatening to bury him alive and spoke on a rasp but Phil listened. The soothing hums in response felt much more comforting than any advice a therapist had given Dan so far. In Phil’s arms, Dan felt more connected to the words he spoke. He felt loved, even while telling Phil about the truly awful experiences that lingered in his brain years later. 

When they woke up the next morning, Dan’s disconnect was gone.


End file.
